Laundry is known to be at least somewhat unpleasant task, if not repugnant task. Not only is home laundry tedious and time-consuming, as the amount of laundry increases, the tedium and time consumption greatly increases.
In athletic departments of many large scale universities, one of the primary difficulties is getting the laundry done in an efficient manner. It is desirable to wash laundry from many different players all together. It is also desirable to make sure that each player gets his or her own laundry back.
Many devices are known to hold laundry together during the course of a washing procedure. However, there is a difficulty with these devices. These devices must leave the laundry free to be washed thoroughly while at the same time being able to efficiently hold the laundry in proper position.
Various problems with washing socks are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,855 to Anthony F. Ciuffo. Other problems in doing laundry are well known.
One typical device is an enlarged safety pin type structure. This device must be made of metal in order to have the holding capacity required. Many uniform items must be held on the pin. So the safety pin must be large.
During the laundry or washing process, the metal pin can damage the machines. Also the safety pin becomes hot enough to cause an injury when touched. The metal can also abrade the clothes and cause them to wear out more quickly. It is also difficult to mark the safety pin so that the clothes may be identified.
Using a bag for the laundry of each individual athlete does not permit exposure of the laundry to washing process efficiently. Even a mesh or net bag restricts movement of each piece of clothing so much that cleaning is inefficient.
Many attempts at providing a suitable strap for holding laundry are known. A suitable laundry strap to provide for restricting each individual's laundry is not yet known. For example, while other laundry straps are known, there is still the problem of socks. A strap cannot really hold socks. A bag to hold socks is inefficient and cumbersome to use with the strap.
Other sock holding devices are equally inefficient. A shirt or a pair shorts can have the loop for holding laundry inserted through an aperture for a sleeve hole or a leg hole. A sock does not have such an aperture.
Use of the well-known hook and loop assembly causes a problem, because lint and other laundry residue clog that assembly and are not easily removed therefrom. It is also difficult to mark a strap of that type for identification.
Marking each individual item of laundry is time consuming and detracts from the appearance of the article. Then there is the problem of sorting each individual's items after. Such problems are too time consuming for an efficiently run athletic program at a larger university.
Accordingly, many problems remain to be solved in cleaning and identifying a mass of laundry, then returning the laundry to the rightful user or owner. As above stated, this is especially a problem for an athletic program in a large university.